About

Wizard's Academy

£42,295

pledged of £30,000 goal

679

backers

Wizard's Academy is a cooperative game for 2-6 players in which you play as students trying to save their academy with magic that they do not understand. You may need to animate stone statues to fight off rampaging hordes, persuade an inspector that the academy is safe (and only slightly aflame) or tame a book that has learned to cast its own spells and delights in mayhem.

Each game your capacities are semi-randomised and you must discover which combinations of glyphs will allow you to fight trolls, imps, demons, fires and floods and which ones will cause you to accidentally summon trolls, imps, demons, fires and floods. You may not always have the right tools for the job, but when all you have is the capacity to tear open a rift to the water dimension every problem looks like a fire...

Every copy of the game comes with plastic miniatures for the imps, trolls, demons, golems and the playable wizards. Resin miniatures are available in some pledge levels or as add-ons. These require some assembly, but really capture the details of the characters that populate the academy. A resin version of any mini is a £4 add on (you'll still receive the plastic mini so that you can start playing immediately).

The characters have all been brought to life by the drawings of Sean Andrew Murray and realised as miniatures by Justin Bintz. While their previous work speaks for itself we're particularly impressed with the job they've done with the characters and villains of Wizard's Academy.

The disaster and location cards are standard poker size (63x88mm) and fit standard card sleeves. The spell cards are 46x69mm and should comfortably fit 47x70mm swan sleeves. The box contains room to store all of the cards sleeved.

If you'd like to know more about the gameplay we're presently all working together to update the wording of the rules on google docs. Feel free to jump in with your comments on the Core Rules or Grimoire.

The first video gives a run through of the game's rules, for people who want to know how to play. The other consists of a minute of footage taken from the hundreds of hours of playtesting we've done with the game, to give you a quick idea of what it feels like to play the game.

Reviews

Blue Peg Pink Peg: "It's not like anything I've ever played and I mean that in a really good way." (Review is 16:10-21:30 when opened in firefox and 26:38-31:58 when opened in chrome)Box of Delights: "This is the game that I'm most excited about for 2015"Cardboard Vault: "I also really liked how the scenarios aren't really linear, there are a lot of different ways to approach the same problem."The Dice Tower: "The scenarios ... the layout of your academy ... the way that cards come up ... the spell organisation and the spell grid ... There's going to be a lot of variety that's available to you in this."Polyhedron Collider: "The real clever mechanic here, and the one that's really going to set Wizard's Academy apart, is the spells."PurplePawn: "The game is approachable, fun, and most importantly, satisfying."Rahdo Runs Through: "I cannot repeat enough just how brilliant some of these mechanisms are."

Geek Native: "I am just such a fool and I'd like to try to make you one too."Today in Board Games: "Imagine for a moment that you are a multiclass thief-chef"UKGMN: "At this point I'm having mechanical decisions influenced by flavour that was chosen almost at random"

As we meet and exceed our funding goal we'll spend the extra money to improve the game for all backers.

To give you a taste of the spell casting in Wizard's Academy, we'd like to invite our backers to modify the game by casting a spell from the Kickstarter Spell Grid every day in the backers-only spell-casting update.

As in the game, some spells are botches, which lead to peculiar happenings (don't worry, nothing that will downgrade the game). The real ones can unlock bonus content, ranging from concept art and interviews right up to adding an extra character for all copies of the game.

The enhancement spell has been cast, adding an extra scenario to the game: Abuse of dimensional magic is tearing the academy apart and rooms are twisting and switching places with alarming regularity. The only solution is to pin the rooms together and freeze them in place in waves of ice before the academy pulls itself apart forever.

Also, it's not strictly a result of the Enhancement spell, but there's also a backer designer scenario added freely to all copies of the game as part of the hard work that backers have done during this campaign to help make it a success :)

Unlocked: Arcarna

The Arcarna spell has been cast, adding three new spell cards to the game. Two are yet to be announced, the third allows a wizard to turn into a ghost and walk through walls, at the cost of haunting the academy.

Unlocked: Smiley

Backers at the SMILEY level receive an additional miniature and character card for Smiley. This sardonic wizard always sees the worst in everything, which means he's used to it. He doesn't have a specialist school of magic, instead boosting every botched spell he casts. Fail your way to victory!

Unlocked: Mona

As a £15 add on backers can add Mona to their game, gaining a resin model and her character card. This vampiric wizard feasts on her allies to become more powerful, stretching your temporary allegiance to the limit. Use the power that this grants you for good and prove that you’re a worthwhile friend when it really counts!

WinGo is an experienced game manufacturer with a collection of really snazzy machines that they're wise enough not to let errant game designers with a penchant for mayhem anywhere near.

Update: We've had a couple of messages from backers who are concerned about Wingo because of a previous project. We'd like to make it clear that the quote that we're working from specifies sufficient material qualities and that we won't sign a contract until we've seen material samples and ensured that they meet our standards. So far Wingo have been very professional and while we are prepared to deal with problems of this nature, we don't anticipate any at this time.

This may have arisen in part due to their limited experience in working with resin. The resin models are not being manufactured by Wingo and are instead being produced as a limited run by a miniatures specialist.

Wizard's Academy will ship from distribution centres inside the UK and US providing cheaper shipping to these locations. We're looking to expand our network further as we develop the games side of the company.

"UK Distribution Centre" is a fancy way of saying "Greg's desk will be buried in boxes and if he ever hopes to see the light of day again he'll have no choice but to send the games onwards."

These guys are fictional and never do any work, but we're still very pleased to have them.

Risks and challenges

The game and most of the assets required have been completed, but there may still be problems with manufacturing, shipping and distribution. As a publisher of fourteen years experience with two kickstarted games we have the skills to anticipate and mitigate most types of issue that might emerge.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge £10 or more
About $13

FLITTER ($15 €14) The full print and play experience. Includes everything you need to play the game, including all unlocked content (even add ons) as well as blank cards for your editing pleasure. All higher level reward tiers include access to the print and play.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge £245 or more
About $315

IRINI ($365 €340) High quality resin minis for each of the base characters fully assembled and hand painted, along with a copy of Wizard's Academy. (If you add Mona to this pledge she will also arrive assembled and painted.)